USENIX Blog

Bespoke, Hand Crafted Engineer

 

I have a problem. Well, several. But specifically, I’m not trained as an engineer. That’s a bad thing, because the further I go in my career in IT Operations and software development, the more like an engineer I’m expected to be. 

To be honest, I’m not actually trained as an IT Ops person, either. Like most people, I sort of backed into the job. I was a tech support agent who knew Linux, got taken under an admin’s wing, brought onto the team, learned and grew, and gradually got more responsibility. 

Sysadminprov and Uninterrupted Social InteractionsIn

This is going to be a shorter lightning post than my earlier ones.  I got very into what I was doing and the people I was with yesterday and didn't spend as much time (any time really) taking notes.  It's 30 minutes to deadline so here goes.

Morning: Improv workshop

Workshops are my bread and butter at LISA these days.  I start the day with a workshop.  Typical, right? Wade Minter's "Improv: Think, React, Go" (not golang) workshop turned out to be very different and a lot of fun (I think there was some subversive learning in there too). 

My LISA Day 1

My morning was spent in the Devops in the Workplace workshop run by Mandi Walls and Dominica Degrandis. Since it was a relatively small group, we started out by introducing ourselves and talking about what we wanted to learn or discuss about devops, then figured out what were the most common themes and which topics more people wanted to touch on. It was agreat mix of people in the room, with folks from large and small organizations in both industry and academia.

LISA14 - Day Three

On building cross-functional teams through single code repos, soup, Golang, empathy and card games.

Greetings from LISA14

It wasn't the easiest cross-country trip I've ever made, but I've made it to my first LISA conference!

LISA14 - Day Two

On testing infrastructure code to reveal and prevent mistakes, and the difficulty of examining your own behaviour.

Sysadmin Skill Tiers, Hallway Track and Work

Morning - The Main Event: Skill Tiers Workshop

LISA14 - Day One

Learning statistics, the good and bad of things staying the same, and the joys of meeting good people in person.

Bleary Eyed CM and Piano

Mark Lamourine - 11:30pm PST, Seattle

Hello from LISA14! I got in late last night (Saturday, Nov 8) and didn't take my own advice.  I stayed up too late. Luckly I did get an hour or two of real sleep on the flight, but it made for a bleary morning.

Roundup of Women-Focused Activities at LISA14

As part of helping to create a community that’s inclusive and welcoming for everyone, LISA has several events throughout the week for women and allies. Read all about them here and start marking your calendars!

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